


Just the Essentials

by mrshays



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pandemic, COVID-19, Crushes, Delivery Person Dean Winchester, Developing Friendships, Essential Workers, F/M, Friendship, Gas-N-Sip (Supernatural), Gas-N-Sip Employee Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Manager Castiel (Supernatural), Pandemic - Freeform, Picketing, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrshays/pseuds/mrshays
Summary: Dean is behind schedule delivering an order to Cas’s Gas-N-Sip. Luckily the handsome, snarky assistant manager is willing to stay late.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 15





	Just the Essentials

**Author's Note:**

> I read a post on Tumblr, that I can’t find now that I need it, with the fic prompt for Essential Workers Destiel. I loved the idea so much, I wrote a thing. If someone recognizes the post I’m talking about, please leave a comment with any details and I’ll be sure to link to it here! I hope you enjoy this brief exchange. I loved writing it!

“Rexburg Gas-N-Sip, this is Steve. How can I help you?”

“Hey, Cas. It’s Dean.”

“Oh! Hello, Dean. It’s nice to hear from you. Is there something wrong with our delivery?”

“Nothing wrong, but I’m going to be a few hours late. The soccer moms are out in force today downtown, and I’m four stops behind already.” Dean swerved his large soda delivery truck, narrowly avoiding a man with a sign that read _Open Idaho Businesses_. “Can you stay late, or should I make you my first stop tomorrow?”

“ETA?”

“Five-ish looks like.”

“Yeah, I’ll call Nora and close for her tonight. See you around five.”

“See ya.”

***

“I swear to god, it’s like no one can see me out there,” Dean says, wheeling the first load of soda crates into the gas station’s double doors. “You’d think a big red truck would catch their attention, but no. They just step off the curb with their ‘I need a haircut’ signs and act pissed when I honk.” Dean tilted the dolly to rest in front of the walk-in cooler while Cas finished locking the doors.

“A woman and her three children banged on the doors today: none of them wearing a mask. The kids kept screaming their heads off and the woman was somehow worse,” Cas said, leading the way through to the walk-in. “She hollered through the doors to let her in, and I just stood behind the register, calmly pointing to the sign tapped up.”

“Oh, I bet that pissed her off.”

“It really did. I think I might rig up a spray bottle, treat them like naughty cats when they get too close to the doors,” he mimed squirting a spray bottle at unruly patrons.

Dean’s eyes crinkled over the handmade mask he wore, given to him by his brother’s wife, Eileen. It had tiny batman logos on it and he loved wearing it, despite the way his nose got all sweaty halfway through his day. Cas – or Steve as his nametag read – had a thin blue mask like you’d see in a doctor’s office. It brought out his eyes in a way that made Dean swoon a bit in close-but-not-too-close proximity.

Sharing a laugh, they continued to trade stories about the folks who insisted that a global pandemic was nothing more than a bad flu, while Dean unloaded the stacked soda pallets into the cooler with black-gloved hands. When he noticed them on the steering wheel between deliveries, Dean fantasized about being a tattoo artist on some televised docuseries. It was a dumb thought, but it was also the only time he’d ever seen black gloves before everyone started getting sick.

“I’ve got one more load, then I’ll be out of your hair,” Dean said. “Don’t want to keep you past closing time.”

“It’s fine. I swear people have no boundaries anymore. You remember the first month when everyone thanked you for being open and helping them?”

Dean nodded his head in agreement while they walked to the front of the store.

“Now, it’s ‘let me in’ and ‘why can’t I come in there’ and ‘I _need_ a Big Slush’. No one _needs_ that much blue dye 40.”

Dean cackled behind his mask and let himself out of the store to get the last of the sodas. The Rexburg Gas-N-Sip had been his favorite stop since Cas began working there a couple of years before. Dean recalled when he knew the handsome clerk only as Steve, but as their weekly deliveries soon developed into a friendship, ‘Steve’ let slip that his actual name was Castiel, but that his boss had trouble pronouncing it, so he’d gone with Steve instead. Dean quickly started calling him Cas, always eager to nickname the people he liked best, and the rest was history. 

Cas locked the door behind them again, and then they split up. Dean unloaded the remaining crates while Cas closed his register and got a mop bucket ready for a thorough cleaning.

With the last of the sodas stacked neatly next to the other brands – so what if he tidied those, too – Dean made his way carefully through the cooler door and out into the convenience store. Cas had left him a dry path through to the double doors, and Dean’s smile softened behind his mask. For all his grumpy attitude conveyed, Dean knew that Cas would just as quickly give someone the shirt off his back, and little gestures like the clear floor, made Dean feel especially warm toward the man.

Dean rounded the last aisle and wheeled his dolly onto the safe territory of the black mat just inside the door. Cas was mopping near the left set of coolers but walked through his own work to meet Dean at the doors. Stepping back, Dean let Cas unlock the doors then step away, so they could switch places.

“Thanks for sticking around for me,” Dean said, happy the mask hid the flush of his cheeks.

“Not a problem,” Cas replied, lingering several feet away. Dean thought he saw something move behind his eyes and he said, “I don’t think I’ve asked you: who are you quarantining with?”

Dean shifted the dolly back on its base and leaned against it a bit, aiming for nonchalance. “Uh, just me. I’m over in Sugar City. What about you? Anyone you’re going home to?”

Cas’s eyes widened a fraction and he answered, “No. It’s just me.”

“Well,” Dean said, not liking the embarrassment he gleaned from Cas’s muffled answer, “what do you say we make plans? Maybe set up a Zoom chat? I’m already on there with my brother. We could loop you into our game nights if you want?” Dean really hoped he wasn’t crossing a line by asking. They hadn’t ever talked about meeting up outside of work and suddenly it was Dean feeling embarrassed.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Cas said, his eye warming once again.

“Great! Yeah, ok, yeah…that’s…awesome.” Dean reached toward Cas to pat his shoulder, a normal gesture under normal circumstances, but then he remembered the state of the universe and dropped his hand, banging it against the dolly. _Smooth, Winchester_.

Cas laughed a bit at the whole ordeal and said, “Yeah, awesome.”

A beat passed between them as Dean stared a bit at Cas, then he cleared his throat and grabbed his phone from his back pocket, “Thursday work for you?”

“What time?” Cas asked, getting his phone, too.

“Say seven? That give you enough time to get home?” They took a moment to exchange numbers and texts and Dean felt a little giddy that they were actually making plans.

“I’ll see you then. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Yeah. Night, Cas. See ya Thursday.”

Dean wheeled the dolly out of the store and heard Cas locking up behind him. He strapped the dolly to the back of the truck and walked around the side to open the driver's door. In the cab, he finished up his delivery paperwork, checked the time, and turned the key in the ignition. Putting the truck in gear, he glanced through the window and saw Cas standing behind the double doors. They shared a wave and Dean pulled out of the gas station, smiling the entire way back to the distribution center.


End file.
